In some ways, I pride myself on being able to recruit without having to spend a dime on anything more then the basics. I grew my LinkedIn network to over 11,000 direct connections and became a master at guessing email addresses. Boolean searching is not only tricky, but really fun. It brings a smile on my face to find the right person just from Google. Its that needle in the haystack game in many ways.

But who really knows how to do this? Is this a lost (or never found) art…

Every day I seem to get an email saying I am perfect for a Java or Oracle or other tech job because someone did a key word search on a job board and just messaged everyone. Sure they might toss in a statement to refer someone else if this is "not quite a fit" for me. What does this say to candidates that see your message? How validated do you feel? It makes me feel like the person sending the message has no concern what my background is and is just tossing things against the wall hoping…